


When You're Right You're...Still Wrong

by AlreadyPainfullyGone



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-09
Updated: 2014-11-09
Packaged: 2018-02-24 18:02:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2591015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlreadyPainfullyGone/pseuds/AlreadyPainfullyGone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Teen Wolf AU. Sheriff Stilinski marries Talia Hale, and even though Stiles is happy for them, it does have the downside of making Derek Hale, rapidly maturing alpha, his new step-brother, just as Stiles is starting to worry that maybe he's not a beta, like he always assumed he was...</p><p>My experiment with A/B/O dynamics.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When You're Right You're...Still Wrong

Stiles is seventeen when his Dad remarries.

It’s not a surprise. His Mom’s been gone a long time, and everyone knows betas don’t mate for life. They fall in love, they fall out of love, and his Dad has fallen in love again – maybe not the way he was with Stiles’ Mom, but enough that it makes him happy, makes him glad to come home at night and puts a lightness in his step.

Stiles is happy for him, he really is. But the fact is his Dad is marrying Talia Hale – who is fine, great really. She’s never going to be his Mom but she’s an OK step-mom, a kind of supportive aunt maybe.

But she’s also Derek Hale’s mother.

Derek Hale goes to his high school, played basket ball up until a year ago, and he was a champ at it. Now he’s kind of passed along the ball, but he still helps to captain the team. He’s a year older than Stiles at eighteen, a head taller, a lot broader and has the kind of facial hair that Stiles couldn’t grow even if he drank Rogaine 24/7 and planted seeds in his face.

Bottom line? Derek is an alpha, and Stiles, well...he’s not even sure he’s a beta.

According to the pamphlet from the school nurse, at his age, as a beta, he should be feeling the first pangs of infatuation, growing into love. While Alphas like Derek are getting their first knot-on and chasing anything that smells ripe, betas like him should be pursuing ‘intellectual harmony’ otherwise known as shared interests and mutual affection.

But he’s not. There’s no pang of infatuation, no interest in getting to know any of the girls or guys at school. It’s like he’s not switched on, and everyone else is.

So, on the day Talia is due to move in with her son, three months before the wedding, Stiles steals a leaflet from school about the signs of a maturing omega.

While his dad and Derek carry boxes through the house, Stiles hides in the bathroom and reads the tiny leaflet. Apparently, if he was an omega, he’d be feeling none of the urges to socialise that characterise the blooming of a beta. (It actually says blooming, like betas are exotic plants).  Omegas coming up to their first heats often exhibited no warning signs at all. Stiles feels a hitch in his stomach at that. The signs of a heat – enlargement of the pupils, flushing and swelling of the lips, nipples, genital and anal area (which, tmi) and (duh) a rise in temperature – often occurred without warning, save for a slight increase in sensory input, similar to being drunk, or high – soft things felt softer, colours were brighter, nice sounds more pleasant.

No warning.

Those two words continue to spook him all through dinner with his Dad and Talia, who are making gooey eyes at each other. Derek is keeping his eyes squarely on his mashed potatoes, and Stiles doesn’t really want to look at him too much, in case Derek thinks he’s staring. Is he staring? No, no he isn’t. And the steak doesn’t taste better than usual, and his sense of smell is normal, not drawing in the ‘aromas of potential mates’.

He excuses himself from dinner as soon as he can and goes upstairs for research purposes, he needs to google, and google hard. Later on he hears Talia and his Dad in the hall, more specifically he hears the words ‘he probably just needs some time’.

He feels bad. Really bad. It’s not that he doesn’t like Talia, he does. He doesn’t hate Derek either, he just...Derek is older and hot and popular, or at least he was before he started getting ‘Alpha sulks’ the kind of intense moodiness that came from seeing any other alphas as a challenge to him. Stiles has exactly one friend, plays no sports (unless you can win Olympic gold at bench sitting) and reads comic books under his blankets like he’s ten years old.

And Derek’s an Alpha, which means ever since Stiles started wondering whether he’s really a beta or not, Derek is a potential threat.

He doesn’t want to be like some omega in a porno – tied up, tied down and stuffed full in every hole possible, shaking like he’s on something, his eyes rolling in his skull, choking down jizz like he’s at an all you can eat buffet.

That’s what Alphas do to omegas.

They’re rare, obviously, as rare as omegas, maybe twenty in a hundred people are anything other than betas. Betas were the norm, and Stiles always assumed that because he was average and...normal, he’d be one. If he isn’t, his life is over. He’ll be someone’s fuck-toy in private and the rest of the time he’ll hang on his Alpha’s every command, he’s seen couples like it – their omegas inert and blank, agreeable to everything their Alpha wants.

Screw that. Stiles isn’t letting anyone turn him into that.

Of course, ending up with a nice beta is pretty much a non-starter. Betas aren’t drawn to the smell of omegas, to their wide eyes and pouting mouths and hot skin. Betas pretty much view Alpha/Omega relations as a fetish – a notch below golden showers on the grossout list.

Stiles puts his head under his pillow and tries to stop himself from thinking about it. But it does no good.

He gets no sleep at all.

***

After school the next day he drags Scott to the pharmacy.

“We have homework,” Scott complains as Stiles goes over the shelves at the back, “I’m already failing two classes, and I’m meant to be going out with Alison tomorrow.”

Scott is a blooming beta alright – Alison is practically the only thing he talks about.

“I just want to have a look, and I need you to keep watch.”

Scott sighs. “Please don’t get me in trouble, my Mom is so close to grounding me already.”

“Just keep an eye out,” Stiles says, taking a final look around himself before darting behind the pharmacy counter and into the little ‘Advice’ room at the back of the store.

It’s a kind of code. OK, you can go back there to get a bunion or a rash looked out, but mostly the advice room is used by omegas and alphas. America being what it is there are a bunch of products aimed at both suppressing and hiding heats and alpha behaviour – at least, that’s what Stiles read online.

In the advice room there are several shelves, and he strikes gold on one of them. Heat suppressants. Deodorising spray. Cooling salve. Odour capturing packs to put around the house. He takes down some packs and reads the backs of them, his skin crawling with embarrassment and anxiety. This is going to be him – taking pills and spraying on chemicals to try and stay safe, stay under the radar.

He can’t take any of the pills, because they’re all sealed in protective boxes which need special magnetic keys to open. (He read online that sometimes pharmacists refuse heat suppressants to omegas who have alphas back home – and it gave him no small sense of horror). But the odour packs and spray are up for grabs, and grab he does, stashing them in his backpack before stepping out into the store and rejoining Scott.

“Why do you even want to look at that stuff?” Scott asks, once their outside and he’s busy texting Alison as they walk, “it’s kind of weird, right? I mean, alphas are strange enough, but omegas, they weird me out man.”

“Yeah, me too,” Stiles says, a white knuckle grip on his pack, “lets get fries.”

*

At home, things are settling into a rhythm.

Talia is a social worker and she and his Dad get up early and eat breakfast before work. Stiles doesn’t have to get up until they’re just leaving, so invariably he ends up eating breakfast alone, or with Derek.

Derek gets up at around the same time as him, but goes for a run as soon as he climbs out of bed, which is as irritating as it is demoralising. So Stiles pours himself cereal and eats it in front of the TV while Derek jogs, and then, while Derek is eating half a grapefruit with a high-protein yoghurt drink, Stiles gets dressed and packs for school.

A few weeks after the move-in, Derek’s car gets rammed by a drunk driver, thankfully while Derek is in a store buying avocados, or bran or some other stupid health food, but it does mean that Stiles ends up being roped into driving him to school.

The conversation goes something like this:

“Just do this one thing for me, please. It’ll be good for you,” his Dad says, while Talia isn’t around (possibly because she’s begging Derek to accept a ride from him).

“Good for me in the monetary sense?”

“Stiles,” his Dad sighs, “Talia and I have been talking and...she feels welcome, she really does, but you and Derek could stand to be closer.”

Stiles wrinkled his nose and inwardly vowed to never, ever let Derek get anywhere near ‘close’ to him.

“I’d settle for you two talking.”

“We talk.”

“Two weeks ago he asked you to pass him the milk at breakfast.”

“See!”

“You ignored him.”

“I had my headphones on.”

“You’re driving him to school, and home, until we have the money to get his car fixed.”

“But-”

“But nothing.”

Less of a conversation and more of a steamrollering. Stiles glared at his Dad all through dinner, and covertly glared at Derek when no one was watching. Derek sat with his head over his plate, not looking up but looking distinctly sour.

The only upside was that, as long as Derek hated his guts, he couldn’t want him as his omega. It was the one bright spot on the increasingly dark horizon.

Ever since Derek and his mom moved in Stiles has been noticing changes – not good ones. The pamphlet said that omegas experienced heightened senses and increasingly pliant and subservient behaviour as their heats approached, that was if they displayed any warning signs at all, and Stiles had started to notice some of those things in himself.

Fact 1. He could now smell what Scott had for breakfast from all the way across the classroom in first period.

Fact 2. He’d  caught himself rubbing the fleecy lining of his hoody sleeve back and forth on his cheek while sitting on the bench for their latest game.

Fact 3. Most worrying. He’d agreed to drive Derek to school (albeit under duress) but, on the first day he did so, Derek had casually mentioned that he wanted to go to the store and get the latest issue of a running magazine.

AND STILES TOOK HIM.

He was almost bug-eyed as soon as he agreed. The words just came out ‘Oh, cool, that’s fine.’

It was not fine. Or cool. It was his gas money (that Derek wasn’t even pitching in for) and his time, and he didn’t want to go to the store, but Derek wanted too, and apparently that was all his brain cared about.

So he pulled up to the store and followed Derek inside and waited while he looked through all the magazines, even stopping to get an eyeful of one of the top shelf old-school porno mags (who even bought those? Sixty year old morons without broadband?) featuring panting, skinny omegas with every hair waxed off, big yellow stars printed over their crotches.

Figures. Fucking stupid alpha step-brother.

Oh God, was it hot? Was he feeling hot? He surreptitiously raised a hand to his forehead. Oh what the fuck? He was definitely warmer than usual.

“I’m just gonna-” he gestured towards ‘away’.

Derek shrugged, like it meant nothing to him and Stiles hurried to the frozen section to rest his head on a rock solid turkey. Oh, that was so much better.

Through the fogged up glass door he saw a pair of shoppers walking with their cart. He could smell their floral perfume, the leather of their shoes, the detergent and sweat on their clothes, as well as the frozen blood and the chemical-tainted ice of the chiller. He pulled his head out and closed the door.

It was an alpha and an omega, both women. He didn’t even have to look closely to see what they were. The alpha was pushing the cart, picking up packets and jars and putting them in without looking at the omega trailing behind. The omega didn’t have a purse, but the alpha did.

Stiles watched them, the alpha striding out in shiny black heels, dressed for work in a suit and sleek hairdo. The omega had on the kind of clothes his Mom had worn in all her pregnancy pictures – a pastel smock and a loose skirt with flat, practical shoes.

She looked up as she walked past, the omega, and caught his eye before quickly looking away, at the floor, the shelves of things she had no money to buy – anywhere but at him.

He didn’t feel warm anymore, he felt cold right down to his bones.

Derek was waiting by the door, empty-handed.

“You didn’t get it?” he was trying to sound pissed off, but even to his own ears he sounded confused and whiny.

Derek frowned. “It’s in my bag.”

“Oh...OK.”

The drive home was silent, and Stiles was for once glad that Derek didn’t think him worth speaking to.

***

“We’re gonna be late!” Derek shouted from the bottom of the stairs.

Stiles new that. He’d known that when he woke up an hour later than he should have. Stupid alarm clock. He was sleeping so heavily now, almost passing out. He was currently gripping a piece of toast in his mouth and shovelling homework into his bag with one hand, while the other was making a grab for his hoodie.

“Stiles?” Derek’s voice was very close, and he whipped around, toast spinning off through the air to land somewhere in the mess of his room. Derek was right behind him, looking around at the disaster zone.

“I’m coming, OK?” He swung the bag up on his shoulder and balled up the hoodie. “Jesus, ease up – I already have a Dad.”

Derek rolled his eyes, turned towards the door, then he stopped, and when Stiles followed his gaze he felt his face turn bright red.

“Out!” he shouted, simultaneously making a dive for the bed, flipping the quilt over his discarded pyjama pants – the ones with the really obvious wet patch on the front. Although he’d been too freaked out about his apparent omega status to even think about getting himself off lately, his body had apparently not gotten the message. It was his third wet dream that week – and he was getting tired of the spontaneous revisiting of early puberty.

Derek just looked at him, and God, was it his imagination or was Derek inhaling?

“Derek! Get out!”

Derek snapped to attention and backed out of the room. Stiles didn’t relax until he heard footfalls on the stairs.

Quickly he picked up the pyjamas and buried them in his laundry hamper. Fuck. He didn’t want to get in the car and drive Derek anywhere, but he had no choice.

Derek was waiting by the door, studiously not looking at him. Stiles breezed past him and out to the Jeep, where he pulled out his keys and got in, barely giving Derek enough to open the door and take the passenger seat before he pulled out of the driveway.

“Sorry,” Derek said, ten minutes into the deathly silent journey.

“Stay out of my room, OK?” Stiles said, “Jesus, it isn’t enough you get to live in my house?”

There’s another long, painful silence.

“Shit.” Stiles hits the wheel. “I didn’t mean...it’s cool, alright? I don’t think that.”

“It’s fine.”

“No it’s not. Look, I’m happy your mom’s happy. I’m really happy, if a tad grossed out that she makes my Dad happy. It’s just...we go to school together, and you don’t like me, and it’s weird that you live with me now.”

“I don’t.”

“Duh. Yeah you do, I eat dinner across from you every night.”

“I don’t not like you.”

Stiles frowned. “But, you’re all...you know. Angry and, scowley and you play sport and I spend literally every game on the bleachers...”

“If this is going to become a Taylor Swift song I can just bail out.”

Stiles snorts, a large, ugly snort of laughter that makes him redden and splutter. When he chances a look sideways he sees that Derek is staring straight ahead, one corner of his mouth lifted in a smile.

“Oh my God you’re funny.”

“I am.”

“You’re seriously funny and you’ve been hiding it from me.”

“Well, you were busy behaving like a brat.”

Stiles winces. “Yeah, I was, you try not being an only child any more after seventeen years.”

“You try inheriting an annoying younger sibling after years of being free of Cora.”

Stiles knew Derek had a sister at boarding school in Paris, but other than that he doesn’t really know much about the family that is now a part of his own.

“Can we start over?” Stiles says.

Derek shrugs. “What do you want to do?”

“How about I smoke you at Destiny after school?”

“I’m gonna kick your ass.”

“In your dreams roid-rage.”

Derek raised his eyebrows.

“OK, no pet names, duly noted.”

Derek does kick his ass. And when they switch to Mario Kart, which Stiles has the edge at as Derek’s never played before and he puts them on rainbow road for the first race (he’s evil, he never pretended otherwise) Derek comes in third, while Stiles is a distant tenth – even Luigi beats him. Even Wario.

But he has fun all the same, and if he shifts  a little closer to Derek with each race, it’s only because he’s offering pointers on his wiimote grip. It’s not because he smells really, really good – like aftershave and skin and _bed._

***

So he’s friends with Derek now, in a small kind of way.

They still don’t talk, at all, beyond the kind of stuff that Stiles could probably talk to Greenberg about – games, the latest on Game of Thrones, school stuff.  

It’s better than tense silence anyway. It has the added bonus of getting his Dad off of his back.

No, it’s not his almost-friendship with Derek that’s worrying him, that’s all good as far as he’s concerned. It’s the step up in his symptoms that has him calling a best friend meeting at Scott’s. (OK, so he just shows up with Doritos and a problem, but ‘meeting’ makes it sound more professional).

“What’s up?” Scott asks, dusting orange dust off of his jeans.

Stiles is swinging around in Scott’s desk chair, not looking his friend in the face. It’s embarrassing. Worse than when he had to tell Scott that he was bi (only, that was just awkward because Scott was the only one who hadn’t  noticed – not the sharpest pencil sometimes).

“I...uh...have a problem.”

“Is it a can’t get to the final level on Portal problem, or a Lydia problem?”

“Neither. And screw you, I rocked Portal.”

“So what’s wrong?”

“I think, I might be...kind of an omega.”

Scott stares at him.

“Scott?”

He continues to stare.

“Oh the love of God stop looking at me like that.”

“Like...”

“Like I just took off all my clothes and asked you to paint me like one of your French girls.”

Scott wrinkles his nose. “Ew.”

“Yeah well, looks like that might be my future.” He grabs his backpack and pulls his trump card – or rather, his most worrying bit of evidence yet.

Scott looks at the magazine on the bed. “Oh my God.”

“It’s not mine, it’s from Derek’s room.”

They stare at the copy of _FuckToy_ magazine, it’s the same issue he saw at the store the time he took Derek to get his running magazine. Maybe that’s when he bought it.

“Derek’s...into Omegas?”

“I think he’s an alpha...and lately I’ve been feeling these, symptoms, I guess, which the internet and that stupid leaflet from the doctor both say mean that I’m...gonna go into heat, soon.”

“Shit,” Scott says succinctly.

“Yeah. And I think I maybe...want to, do Derek.”

Scott looks like Stiles has just confessed to wanting to bang his Mom on the hood of his Jeep.

“Derek?”

“Yeah.”

“Derek _Hale_.”

“Mmmhmmm.”

“Your step-brother?”

“YES,” Stiles stresses, “I don’t know why I just...he smells good, and he’s obviously a good alpha with the arms and the...jaw and the beard. That’s all stuff that omegas look for you know – potency, strength.”

“But he’s Derek.”

“He’s actually...funny.”

“Intentionally?”

“Yeah,” Stiles feels a stupid smile spread on his face, “he’s...weirdly attractive sometimes. Just sometimes, when he’s not glowering like Neolithic man,” he sighs, and it turns into a growl of frustration, “and he’s my step-brother and he probably wouldn’t pick me if I was the last omega in the world! Like, it could literally be an Omega Man situation – and he’d be wooing a store mannequin.”

Scott looks at him funny.

“For the love of God watch a movie not directed by Michael Bay.”

“How do we stop you going into heat?”

“Can’t. I mean, yeah there’s suppressants and stuff but you need to go to the doctor to get them, and I’m underage so they’d tell my Dad. Everyone would find out.”

“They’ll probably notice if you go into heat, I mean, I don’t really know much about it, but it sounds intense.”

Stiles has to agree. All the stuff online says a heat is basically like being horny 24/7 with emotional vulnerability and an intense desire to be alone with one’s alpha thrown in. Sort of like a honeymoon, only one where you didn’t get to pick your husband or eat lots of expensive cake beforehand.

“I can hide it. I mean, it’s not a regular thing. That’s what all the sites say. It only happens when there’s an alpha, an alpha that wants you and that you...want. And when you’re both at exactly the same point biologically, ready to mate – like special timing? And then you mate once and get into a cycle with them and...just the first time, you kind of set each other off.”

“But you said it felt like it was happening...so, are you and Derek setting each other off?”

Stiles waved his hands helplessly. “I don’t know! I just know I feel different, and it’s not love – it’s not butterflies of impending romance, this is hardcore heart thumping, palm sweating, blood boiling lust – arousal, the peak of my sexual interest, and he’s right there!”

Scott looks distinctly uncomfortable.

“Sorry,” Stiles tips his head back over the headrest, “I just...I’m worried, and I don’t know what to do. If it happens, and Derek’s there, it’s going to tear our family up, and my Dad’ll end up alone again. I can’t do that to him. No one can know what’s going on.”

“What if you come stay here? When it happens?” Scott says, “just wait it out. I’m a beta for sure, and so’s my Mom.”

Stiles widens his eyes. “I would never-”

“I know! I’m just saying.” Scott says, turning bright red.

Stiles looks at his hands, which are flexing and fiddling between his knees. “OK. OK, I’ll pack up a go-bag and if it happens, I’ll come straight here.”

“It’ll be OK. I mean, you and Derek, what’re the odds that you’re gonna be compatible? If you’re coming into heat at the same time, that’s just a coincidence, and it probably won’t happen again. There must be someone else, right? Your Alpha? And he’s got some other omega lined up.”

“Yeah...” Stiles says, “you’re right.”

He tells himself he’s not disappointed.

***

The anniversary of Derek’s Dad’s passing isn’t something that Stiles is ready for.

He knows, obviously, that Derek’s Dad died a long time ago, before Talia even moved to Beacon hills to live in the old family house. Derek still had his last name, even though Talia was going to be a Stilinski, Derek wasn’t going to change. Still the anniversary of his death is a dark time for both of them, Derek in particular.

They say nothing about it, but dinner that night is tense. The ride home with Derek was as silent as if they’d never become almost-friends, it was just like before, only then Derek would at least try to make conversation during dinner. Tonight he just sits there, looking down at his plate like he’s not seeing or hearing anything. After a while Talia, who looks strained herself, sets down her knife and fork and reaches over to touch Derek’s hand. Derek lets her, but his frown deepens.

“Derek, it’s OK if you don’t want to sit with us right now.”

Stiles blinks because, whoa, that’s kinda harsh. But then he sees Derek’s shoulders slump and watches as he nods gratefully and leaves the table. Stiles catches his Dad’s eye and sees the hint of grief etched there – he knows his Dad feels selfish for thinking about Mom today, but it can’t be helped.

After dinner he helps do the dishes, then goes to his room.

Lying on his bed in various positions, flopping, tossing and turning around gets him to nearly two in the morning, then he just can’t take it anymore. He gets out of bed and crosses the hall, bringing himself up short in front of Derek’s door. He lifts his hand, drops it, raises it again and fidgets on the balls of his feet. With the tip of his tongue pressed to his top lip in an agony of awkwardness, he pushes the door open, slowly.

“Derek?”

There’s a very long silence, then from the darkness comes a dry, “what?”

Stiles pads into the room and squints until he can see Derek lying in bed, facing the opposite wall, his back to him.

“Are you OK?” He realises that it was a dumb question within about four fifths of a second, but Derek doesn’t say anything just scrunches up under his sheets and sighs.

He scrunches his toes into the carpet. “Do you want me to leave?”

Derek still doesn’t speak, and Stiles is just turning to go, feeling like an ass, when he hears Derek shrug off the covers and sit up.

They look at each other for a moment, then Stiles picks his way across the carpet and gets up on the bed, hesitating only a moment before pulling back the sheets and blankets and scrunching down under them. He can hear Derek breathing, hear every tiny rustle of the sheets against his skin, but Derek lies back down, and after a minute Stiles lies back against the other pillow, a lump in his throat.

His mind races, trying to come up with things to say, words to make it all better, just words, to pour into the great, yawning silence between them. But everything sounds wrong, too trite, too insensitive, too sappy, too much of a platitude.

“Derek,” he says, after long, long minutes of awkward silence, during which he lies still, his body tense as a wire.

Derek’s arm slips over his stomach, pulling him onto his side and scooting him bodily across the mattress into the warm dip where Derek is lying. After a half-flail of consternation Stiles goes still, heart between his teeth, as he feel’s Derek’s too-hot body settle against his back, his nose tucked just into the hair behind Stiles’ ear. Derek lets out a sound, part huff, part contented growl.

Stiles closes his eyes and tries to relax, even though his heart is beating like a bird in a fist because he’s a rapidly maturing omega trapped under the arm of a mature alpha, in a bed. He tries to forget that, because he knows that’s not what this is about.

Between the two of then, there’s an entire orphan – two halves of the same loss. And this...this is the only thing Stiles can offer right now that isn’t sucky, empty condolences. Derek has had condolences and well wishes and sympathy and pity – and maybe 99% of the time he isn’t crippled by what he’s lost.

But this is the 1% - the one day where he needs to lie in bed, awake in the small hours, and squeeze a warm, living thing to his chest so he doesn’t feel alone.

Stiles has been there – when he had no one.

He can give him this.

***

When Stiles wakes up he’s alone, and he can hear Derek in the bathroom next door, turning on faucet and calling out a response to Talia’s muffled shout, asking if he wants oatmeal or toast for breakfast.

Stiles sits up, his skin slightly damp with sweat, feeling oddly alive to the brush of sheets and blankets, the coolness of the air and the prickle of morning chill that tightens his nipples and draws goose pimples over his chest. The room is awash with the smell of Derek – woodsy aftershave and sweat and the leather of his jacket, the slept in, sexed in smell of his bed. Stiles is covered in the lonely scent of Derek’s arousal and fitful sleep.

The fact that he can sense all this worries him, a lot. His senses have sharpened hugely, which can only mean he’s getting closer to his first heat by the second.

Stiles jumps out of the bed, trying to chase the warm, languid feeling from his limbs. He wants so badly to lie bonelessly in the warmth, waiting for Derek to come back, but he forces those thoughts from his mind, shuffles across the room and into his own, where he pulls on a shirt and heads down to breakfast.

A quick shower after and he smells more or less normal, even if he’s hyper aware of how his skin smells, how it feels softer than usual. He still manages to get through the ride to school like it’s a normal day – even if Derek has stubbornly not washed the smell of him, of them, off of his skin. Maybe he can’t smell it himself, but it’s intoxicating to Stiles in the stuffy car. He can almost taste it every time he wets his lips.

It isn’t until later, after a distracted day of too many colours and smells and sounds and textures, that Stiles comes home to find Derek’s soft black sleep shirt shoved under his pillow, smelling of the two of them, of skin and hair and heat and vaguely of come.

He holds it in his hand for a long moment, wondering if Derek knows what he’s doing, or whether he’s as in denial as Stiles wishes he could be.

For whatever reason, Derek is laying a claim to Stiles’ bed, to his room – to him.

An alpha, making his intentions for his omega known.

***

“Talia and I are going away for the weekend,” his Dad says while they sit down to dinner together. Talia is at a fundraiser for the first multi-gendered refuge shelter in the state, and Derek is out running.

“OK...so, are you leaving us money for food?”

“You’re going to stay at Scott’s.”

Stiles frowns. “What?”

“I spoke to Melissa, you’re going to stay with them for the weekend. It makes sense – you can spend some time with Scott and Derek can have the house to himself to study for his finals.”

He knows. Stiles realises instantly, because his Dad is a terrible liar, and because there’s no way this little trip is a coincidence. First heats, he’s read, can be disturbing for betas to witness. They have no frame of reference to the sometimes violent, often extreme behaviour of an alpha in heat. Talia and his Dad are giving Derek space because he’s about to enter his alpha heat.

They know about Derek, but do they know about him?

“Do you have to go?” he asks.

He Dad bows his head. “Son...I know it’s been hard, having this new family, I just think maybe we could all use a break, from each other. I know you’re not happy with Talia and Derek living here-”

“That’s not true.”

“I know, I know that’s not fair to say but...I can understand how hard it is for you. And the anniversary...Talia needs some time away from here, and you could do with a break from Derek – it’s like living with two Tom cats.”

Stiles clenches his hands in his pockets. “That the only reason?”

“Stiles...”

“I know, about Derek.”

His Dad looks surprised, and in that moment Stiles knows that he has no idea what he’s going though – his Dad has no idea that he’s an omega.

“How?”

“I notice stuff, I know stuff...is he going to be OK here on his own?”

“He asked his mother if we would give him the house for the weekend. And Talia agreed. He wants to be alone for this.”

“And you’re not worried? She’s not worried at all about leaving him to deal with this on his own?”

“Of course she is,” his Dad says, an edge of defensive anger coming into his tone, “but Derek is practically an adult, and he knows better than anyone else what he needs right now. If he says he needs to be alone, he needs to be alone.”

Stiles says nothing.

“So you’ll go to Scott’s and...I will take your house keys.”

“Dad!”

“I will take them because I know you, you’re curious, and you’re too interested in everything for your own good. Keys, now.”

Stiles dredges his keys out of his pocket and hands them over.

“I need you to pack a bag son.”

“OK,” Stiles huffs, because, isn’t this what he wanted anyway? To be out of the way when Derek’s heat struck? To protect himself?

“I know you won’t bring this up to him, it would be embarrassing for him, you know that.”

“I won’t say anything.”

“Good boy, and, we can talk about it some more if you have questions about-”

“It’s fine Dad.”

“Alright, well...pack some stuff and I’ll take you to Scott’s after dinner.”

Stiles goes upstairs and empties out his backpack of school stuff, repacking it with clothes and a few games and his xbox controller. He puts it on the end of the bed, with his pillow, and picks up the black shirt that he’s been keeping under there. Derek’s shirt. He holds it in his hand for a moment, then stuffs it into the backpack, zipping it up before he has to think too hard about what he’s doing.

***

He waves his Dad and Talia off from Scott’s front door and goes inside with his friend to sit in his room and start setting up for a marathon night of Destiny and Sunset Overdrive. He takes his pillow and puts it between his back and the end of Scott’s bed for optimal comfort during gameplay.

Scott sits down next to him and they wait for the start screen to load.

“What’s that?” Scott asks, and Stiles looks down to find Derek’s shirt in his lap. Had he put it there when he got the games from his bag? He doesn’t remember doing it.

“Just a shirt.”

Scott looks at him funny but doesn’t push it.

They play for a bit, drinking Coke and taking turns at missions when co-op play inevitably ends in trash talk.

Then Stiles’ cell rings.

He swipes the screen even though it’s an unknown number, and says, “Hello?”

“You’re not here,” Derek says, voice clear and slightly irritated.

“Derek?”

Scott’s eyes widen and he gestures at the phone, miming his confusion. Stiles shrugs and widens his eyes helplessly. “Why would I be there, you uh...you wanted the house to yourself, remember?”

“I wanted your Dad and my Mom out of the house – that’s not the same thing.”

Stiles swallows, is the room too bright? The light is so clear and yellow and the room seems to glow with it. Shit.

“I um...I can’t come over, you know that.”

There’s a long silence. “I thought you wanted to.” Derek’s voice is toneless, sad, and Stiles wants to hug him now, to be with him now, to make that sadness go away.

“I don’t...I don’t know.”

“Fine, Stiles,” Derek says, sounding tired, “that’s fine. I’ll just, I’m gonna sleep this off then.”

“Derek?”

The line goes dead.

“Shit,” he drops the phone and gets to his feet, “I have to go over there.”

“Why?”

“He needs me,” Stiles says.

“Dude, you’re not thinking straight,” Scott says, “What happened to staying here until this whole heat thing was over with? That’s what you wanted, right?”

“I want...” Stiles tries to narrow it down to a point, to something he can explain to Scott, right here, right now, “I want to be there with him. I want him to not sound like that.”

“But if you go over there, the two of you might...you know, and then you’ll regret it and it’ll make things really weird for your Dad and Talia.”

“I’ll regret not going,” Stiles says, with a certainty that would scare him if he didn’t know for sure that he was right to feel it, “cover for me, OK?”

“Stiles?”

He opens Scott’s window and climbs out onto the garage roof, scrambling town the trellis like he has about a hundred times before. He doesn’t look back, but is almost stunned by the scents of oil and asphalt and grass and a thousand other odours as he starts to run home. This is it. This is his heat.

His heart is in his throat as he reaches the house and knocks. The windows are all dark. Maybe Derek really is asleep, and he won’t hear and he’ll think he never came and...

The door opens and Derek is there, wearing sweatpants and a tshirt, his hair flat and his face pillow lined.

“Stiles?”

The way his frame softens makes Stiles so happy he can’t help throwing himself through the doorway, putting his arms around Derek and hugging him tightly, pressing against him and drawing in his smell – aftershave and leather and sleep and...something sweetly spiced, like cinnamon, like cedar wood.

“I thought you weren’t coming,” Derek says, as Stiles backs up a little to look at him again.

“I didn’t know I would, until you asked,” Stiles admits, “I’ve been so worried, you don’t even know. About this whole heat thing and, I didn’t want to lose my mind and have some asshole take advantage but...that’s not you, I know that. I think I kind of know you, but not as well as I could and...maybe we can talk more, or go on a date if that’s not too weird but not now because now we should just be together and...what?”

Now that he’s here, with Derek, in the low light of the one lamp in the hallway, all he wants is to get back into Derek’s bed and touch him, just touch him, everywhere. And be touched. To wrap himself up in him and never let go, but Derek is looking at him, his eyes kind of worried-happy, like he can’t quite believe what he’s looking at.

“I was right,” Derek says, eventually.

“About?”

“When I picked you, I was right.” Derek looks pleased with him, pleased with himself, “It could have been anyone, and there were a lot of people trying to make me chose them. A lot. Hot people and popular people, people who thought I’d just jump at the offer of their bed.”

Stiles feels  a stab of unpleasant anxiety, blended with jealousy. “Who?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Derek says, “it matters that I didn’t know what I wanted, but I didn’t want them, I didn’t even know I picked you, not until...” his breath is sharp, “That was one of the worst nights of my life. Every year, it’s the worst night, all over again – and you made it better. You helped.”

Stiles blinks, remembering the weight of Derek’s body against his back, the way he’d buried his face in the nape of Stiles’ neck and left the wetness of tears there.

“Why wouldn’t I have?” Stiles says.

“That. You didn’t even think about it. You just came in.” Derek shakes his head, “and I picked you and, yeah, OK, I teased you, with the shirt and the running and the not really bothering with getting dressed after a shower-”

“I knew it!”

“But I didn’t know you actually wanted to have your heat with me,” Derek says.

“I want to have my heat with you,” Stiles says firmly, “all my heats, forever. And for what it’s worth, I chose you too. Because you’re...not as much of a dick as I thought, you’re actually...kind of nice, funny.”

The way Derek’s whole face kind of glows at his lame, inadequate complement makes Stiles want to rip out his heart and offer it to him, right there.

“I really, really want to be yours,” he says instead, “and I don’t think I have to worry because, you’re nice and I know you’ll take care of me, and you wouldn’t do anything to hurt me or humiliate me or...any of that stupid Alpha/Omega stuff from that magazine...even though it did kind of scare me, that you had it.”

Derek flushes and looks down. “I was just working some stuff ou...wait,” his head shoots up, “Stiles-”

“You’re a good alpha, I can see that.”

“I’m not,” Derek says.

“But you are.”

 “Stiles...I’m an omega.”

“What?” Stiles blinks, trying to focus because all he wants is to tell Derek how wonderful he is, and how much he wants to be with him, always, because Derek is...perfect. But right now Derek is making no sense whatsoever.

“Of course you’re an alpha, we’re in heat. I’m all sense overloaded and I’ve been driving you all over town just because you wanted me to and comforting you and...”

“And you, are a good alpha,” Derek finishes. “Taking care, of your omega.”

Stiles’ mouth hangs open for thirty whole seconds.

“Oh. My. God.”

“You thought I was your alpha?” Derek says, a trace of amusement in his voice.

“Have you seen you, you’re all strong and...hairy.”

Derek raises his eyebrows, but his flush deepens at the compliment. And now Stiles can see what he’s been missing – the soft, bitten look of Derek’s lips, the way his nipples are visible through his tshirt – pert and pebbled despite the warmth of the house.  Arousal curls through him like smoke.

“You were teasing me?”

Derek nods. “Did you like having my shirt in your bed? My scent?”

Stiles nods. “You didn’t shower either, before we went to school.”

“Wanted every to know I was being courted by my alpha.”

A little moan gets caught in Stiles’ throat.

“You thought you were my omega?” Derek grins again, coming forward and burying his face in Stiles’ shoulder, sniffing. “God, you should smell you right now – pure alpha.”

“You’re kidding me, right?” Stiles can’t smell anything, only Derek – sweet and smoky with arousal, leaving a creamy taste in his mouth every time he breathes in.

Derek shakes his head against his shoulder. “Uhuh.”

“Wow,” Stiles puts his arms around him – around his omega – his freaking omega. “I’m dumb.”

“Misinformed, not dumb.” Derek steps away and rubs a hand over his torso, hissing as his palm presses his swollen nipple. “I really, really want to get out of these clothes.”

Stiles swallows. “That would...uh, probably be more comfortable.”

“You should take those off too.”

“Good idea.”

“And Stiles?”

“Mmm?”

“You’re gonna have to catch me,” Derek says, taking off for the stairs and climbing them at a sprint, two at a time.

“No fair!” Stiles bolts after him, nearly tripping on Derek’s shirt halfway up. He finds Derek’s sweat pants on the landing, and catches a glimpse of him as he runs from his bedroom into Stiles’. Stiles leaps for the door as it swings closed, pushing into the room and facing Derek across his bed. Derek’s in his underwear, breathing deeply through his nose, looking at Stiles’ rumpled sheets with a vague look of hunger.

He climbs up onto the bed as Stiles gets up there too, kneeling on the mattress.

“Got you,” Stiles says.

“Got _you_ ,” Derek corrects, tackling him to the bed, he growls low in his throat, “you wilful omega you.”

“Oh my God,” Stiles groans, “you’re seriously not letting that go, ever?”

“Letting it go?” Derek tugs Stiles’ shift up and nuzzles his stomach, “I’m going to tell our grandkids.”

***

They have a lot of explaining to do when their parents get home – mostly about the mess in the kitchen from hastily prepared meals, the jizz covered nest-like mess of Stiles’ bed, and the sudden shortage of clean towels in the house. Not to mention the fact that he and Derek are now inseparable –literally – Stiles never wants to not have Derek’s arm around his waist, or his head against Derek’s shoulder. It’s not love, not yet, it goes deeper than that. He belongs with Derek, they belong together. Everything in his body tells him so.

Talia accepts it more readily than his Dad, which is to be expected – her parents were an alpha-omega pair after all. His Dad is struggling with the step-brother thing, but that’s just a stupid title, it doesn’t mean anything after all. Derek is his mate – that’s the only relationship they could ever have – friends and lovers and family all wrapped up together in one bond.

They still have their own rooms, but they sleep in the same bed, alternating depending on whose room is the tidiest, and since their first heat they’re taking it slow, which is fine with Stiles. They haven’t done it yet – the full it – but after that weekend he feels so close to Derek that he doesn’t care if they ever do it. As far as he’s concerned they’ve been as close as they can be, whether they’ve have ‘full sex’ or not (and isn’t that a weird term? What they’d done definitely hadn’t felt like half sex).

Then there’s school, where one of the two alphas that wanted Derek for themselves is in their senior year. But Braden is a good sport about it, and she’ll find her omega somewhere, just not in Derek. The other Derek won’t tell him about, but Stiles notices that they end up avoiding Alison’s family, particularly Alison’s aunt, around town. And when Scott invites them all along to the Argent family barbeque, Stiles has to good sense to decline, politely.

He’s not worried, or possessive, but he knows Derek doesn’t like Kate much, and especially doesn’t like the possibility of being alone with her, so he turns down the invitation before he even tells Derek about it, and Derek looks relieved. Derek doesn’t need the stress anyway, studying for the SAT’s as he is – so Stiles keeps himself busy and useful, making Derek study snacks and testing him with his flash cards and lying on the floor with him when Derek gives up for the day and starts dooming and glooming about how bad his results are going to be.

He passes with flying colours, which Stiles attributes in no small measure to his constant supply of ants on a log.

“Hey,” he says while they stand in line at the movies waiting for celebratory back seat make outs. “You want salty popcorn?”

“Yes. But you’re gonna get sweet.”

“I have enough for both,” Stiles shrugs, “besides, you know I’m going to steal yours when I run out.”

Derek sighs a put upon sigh and Stiles slips his hand into Derek’s sweater pocket and snuggles in under his arm.

“Emotional blackmail,” Derek says.

“But it’s working.”

Stiles is still smiling when he catches sight of a familiar couple by the ice cream counter – the two women from the store, the alpha and omega. They’re both dressed for the weekend, the omega in floral smock and jeans, the alpha in a blue dress and cardigan. They have a little boy with them, and the alpha has a sling on with a baby in it.

He watches them for a long time, then the omega turns and sees him, and he starts, then waves.

She falters for a second, then finger waves back, confused. Her alpha glances at him, then Derek, and whispers something to her partner before waving at him too.

Stiles flushes, knowing that he and Derek are obvious as newly weds.

He remembers seeing them at the store, feeling so sorry for himself, and for the poor omega in stay at home mom clothes, with no purse and no say in the groceries. He knows now that he was being an idiot. Who does what, who wears what and who decides what doesn’t mean anything when it comes to relationships like theirs – or anyone’s, come to that.

“What are you thinking about?” Derek asks, nudging him along in the queue.

“Just that, you know, I wouldn’t have minded, being your omega.”

Derek kisses the top of his head. “That’s what makes you a good alpha.”

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
